IPinfo Launches Self-Service Residential Proxy Detection API With IPinfo Max

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IPinfo, the internet data company, today announced that its residential proxy detection dataset is now available, for the first time, through a self-service API. IPinfo’s new IPinfo Max product makes one of its most requested fraud and abuse datasets more accessible than ever.

Previously available only through enterprise agreements, residential proxy detection can now be enabled through IPinfo Max, giving security, fraud, and adtech teams immediate access to continuously verified residential proxy intelligence without a sales process. IPinfo Max also includes geolocation, VPN detection, company, ASN, carrier, and hosting data.

The announcement comes as the dataset surpasses 107 million directly observed residential proxy IP addresses, approximately 2.3x growth over the past year, while expanding coverage to 126 residential proxy providers worldwide.

"Residential proxies have become one of the most effective ways to disguise automated activity because they blend in with legitimate consumer traffic," said Ben Dowling, Co-CEO and founder of IPinfo. "Our research shows these networks are incredibly dynamic and more prevalent than ever. Most residential proxy IPs are only visible briefly before rotating back to legitimate use, making historical reputation increasingly unreliable. By making residential proxy IP detection more widely available, we're giving more organizations access to directly observed data and the context they need to make smarter decisions."

Why Residential Proxies Matter

Residential proxies have become one of the fastest-growing forms of anonymized infrastructure because they route traffic through genuine consumer internet connections instead of datacenter infrastructure. Requests originate from real homes, real ISPs, and real devices, making automated traffic significantly more difficult to distinguish from legitimate users.

As a result, residential proxies have become a preferred tool for credential stuffing, fake account creation, web scraping, ad fraud, payment abuse, and other forms of automated attacks.

What's less widely understood is where these residential IPs actually come from.

Most residential proxy providers don't own the infrastructure they sell. Instead, they recruit endpoints from everyday consumer devices, often through proxy SDKs embedded in free mobile applications, browser extensions, streaming software, VPN clients, torrent applications, and other consumer software. Once installed, that software can register a device as a proxy endpoint capable of relaying third-party internet traffic. Security researchers have also documented cases where malware has enrolled devices into residential proxy networks without their owners' knowledge.

The result is a constantly changing supply of legitimate-looking residential IP addresses that traditional VPN and hosting detection cannot identify. Without visibility into these networks, organizations are left blind to a growing share of automated abuse.

IPinfo's research found that many of these IPs remain active in residential proxy networks only briefly before returning to legitimate residential use. This constant rotation makes residential proxies fundamentally different from traditional VPNs and datacenter proxies, and much harder to detect using historical reputation alone.

Residential Proxy Coverage Growth

Residential proxy infrastructure changes constantly, and maintaining accurate detection requires continuously tracking those changes.

Over the past twelve months, IPinfo's residential proxy dataset has grown from approximately 47 million directly observed IP addresses to more than 107 million today, while expanding provider coverage by roughly 45% to 126 residential proxy providers.

These IPs span roughly 35,000 autonomous systems across virtually every country. The largest concentrations appear in the United States, Australia, Brazil, and India, reflecting the global footprint of today's residential proxy ecosystem.

The infrastructure itself is remarkably dynamic. IPinfo's analysis of more than 170 million residential proxy IPs found that the average IP remains visible in proxy networks for just 4.56 days, while 60% of residential proxy IPs are observed only once during a 90-day period. Rather than remaining permanently associated with proxy infrastructure, these addresses cycle rapidly between active proxy use and legitimate residential traffic, making historical reputation alone an increasingly unreliable detection strategy.

The research also found that 46% of residential proxy IPs appear simultaneously across multiple provider networks, highlighting how heavily today's proxy ecosystem relies on shared underlying infrastructure rather than isolated provider-owned networks.

The market is also concentrated. The five largest providers account for nearly half of all residential proxy IPs IPinfo tracks, while more than 120 additional providers make up a long tail of smaller networks that remain equally important to monitor because abuse increasingly spreads across reseller ecosystems and niche providers.

Built From Direct Observation

IPinfo's residential proxy detection dataset is built entirely from direct observation rather than inference.

Every IP included in the dataset has been directly observed operating within an active residential proxy network. Rather than classifying IPs based on ASN ownership, hostname analysis, or heuristics, IPinfo continuously connects to residential proxy providers, validates active endpoints, and records participating IP addresses over time.

This approach allows IPinfo to continuously measure changes in residential proxy infrastructure while maintaining a deliberately strict definition of what qualifies as a genuine residential proxy.

Combined with continuously expanding provider coverage and one of the industry's largest directly observed datasets, this methodology provides customers with transparent, evidence-based signals they can confidently incorporate into decision-making.

"Our users aren't looking for another dataset that asks them to trust an assumption," said Dowling. "They're looking for evidence. Direct observation gives us the ability to provide present-day proof, and that gives our customers a stronger foundation for every decision they make."

New Residential Proxy Self-Service API

The residential proxy detection dataset included in the IPinfo Max product provides more than a residential proxy flag. Every residential proxy IP includes additional context that helps customers make more informed automated decisions:

• last_seen — the most recent date the IP was directly observed operating within a residential proxy network.
• percent_days_seen — how consistently the IP has appeared over the observation period.
• provider_name — the residential proxy provider operating the endpoint, including distinctions between residential, mobile, and datacenter pools when providers operate multiple network types.

These signals help customers distinguish between infrastructure actively participating in residential proxy networks today and IPs that may have appeared only briefly weeks or months earlier. Rather than treating every residential proxy identically, organizations can incorporate recency, persistence, and provider context into their own decision logic, reducing false positives while maintaining confidence in active abuse detection.

Built for Security, Fraud, and Traffic Quality

Residential proxy detection supports a wide range of workflows where understanding the true nature of internet traffic is essential.

• Fraud teams use the data to identify high-risk transactions, account creation attempts, and payment abuse originating from residential proxy networks.
• Security teams incorporate it into credential stuffing, account takeover, scraping, and abuse detection workflows.
• Adtech organizations use it to identify residential proxy traffic that can distort campaign measurement, audience targeting, attribution, and traffic quality.

Because detecting residential proxies is just part of IPinfo Max's broader IP intelligence offering, customers can combine it with geolocation, VPN detection, company, ASN, carrier, and hosting data to gain a more complete understanding of every IP address they evaluate.

Residential proxy detection has traditionally been one of the least accessible forms of IP intelligence, reserved for organizations able to justify enterprise procurement. With IPinfo Max, the same continuously verified dataset is now available through a self-service API with transparent pricing and monthly or annual subscriptions, giving developers, security teams, fraud analysts, and adtech organizations immediate access to enterprise-grade residential proxy intelligence.

About IPinfo

IPinfo is the internet data company, providing the world’s most accurate IP data that delivers highly contextual metadata on each IP address, from geolocation and mobile carrier to privacy detection and proxies. IPinfo is trusted by more than 500,000 users, from developers to Fortune 500 companies, who use IP data to make smarter decisions, mitigate security risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and drive better customer experiences. IPinfo’s robust and secure API processes more than 1 billion requests daily, with data also available through direct download and leading cloud platforms, all backed by a team of data experts who are committed to precision. Discover the power of better IP data at IPinfo.io.